This form of Anniella from the coast of Monterey Bay in Monterey County was formerly recognized as the subspecies Anniella pulchra nigra - Black Legless Lizard, but it is actually just a melanistic form of Anniella pulchra.

Some herpetologists and state agencies, including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, still recognize this subspecies, so it is shown here separately from the rest of Anniella pulchra..

Judging by the pictures below, there is a location at a beach in southern Santa Cruz County where the legless lizards are dark in color similar to A. p. nigra, although this location is north of an area in northern Monterey County where lizards are silvery-colored.

A Southern California Legless Lizard writhes around rapidly on a board in Riverside County. Accustomed to living on soft sand it can burrow into, it has difficulty moving on the hard surface.

Black Legless lizards burrow into Monterey County sand dunes.

A Bakersfield Legless Lizard crawls and burrows into loose soil in Bakersfield.

The detached tail of a Southern California Legless Lizard wriggles rapidly, looking like a living creature, until it gradually slows down. This illustrates how a lizard can drop its tail to distract a predator then crawl away to safety while the predator chases the tail.
(This tail was not removed intentionally, it was unexpectedly dropped by the lizard when it was stressed from being handled.)

Description

Based on the one species concept of Anniella pulchra as it was known before being split into 5 species in 2013.

Typically there is a dark line along the back and several thin stripes between scale rows along the sides where the dorsal and ventral colors meet, but variants occur.

Lizards from Porterville, Tulare County, have dark blotches underneath.1

Life History and Behavior

The following information is based on descriptions of Anniella pulchra before it was split into five species, unless otherwise indicated.

Activity

Does not bask in direct sunlight.
Tolerance of low temperatures allows activity in cool conditions.
Lives mostly underground, burrowing in loose sandy soil.
Forages in loose soil, sand, and leaf litter during the day.
Sometimes found on the surface at dusk and at night.
Apparently active mostly during the morning and evening when they forage beneath the surface of loose soil or leaf litter which has been warmed by the sun.

Defense

The tail detaches and writhes on the ground for several minutes to distract a potential predator while the lizard escapes.

I have also received a personal communication that a scrub jay was observed pulling a 10 inch legless lizard out of the ground in a yard in Thousand Oaks, Ventura County.The tail was detached, distracting the bird, while the observer picked up the lizard. The bird flew away with the tail, presumably to eat it.

Live-bearing.
Probably breeds between early spring and July, with 1 - 4 young (usually 2) born between September and November.

Habitat

Occurs in moist warm loose soil with plant cover. Moisture is essential. Occurs in sparsely vegetated areas of beach dunes, chaparral, pine-oak woodlands, desert scrub, sandy washes, and stream terraces with sycamores, cottonwoods, or oaks. Leaf litter under trees and bushes in sunny areas and dunes stabilized with bush lupine and mock heather often indicate suitable habitat. Often can be found under surface objects such as rocks, boards, driftwood, and logs. Can also be found by gently raking leaf litter under bushes and trees. Sometimes found in suburban gardens in Southern California.

Geographical Range

Occurs from the southern edge of the San Joaquin River in northern Contra Costa County south to the Ventura County, south of which there is a wide area where the species of Anniella is or are unknown.

Occurs in scattered locations in the San Joaquin Valley, along the southern Sierra Nevada mountains, and on the desert side of the Tehachapi Mountains and part of the San Gabriel Mountains.

There is an old unconfirmed record from Redwood Canyon, Marin County, and others from San Francisco and Palo Alto.

Two melanistic or dusky populations occur. One is in coastal dunes from Morro Bay south to the mouth of the Santa Maria River in San Luis Obispo County. The other, recognized as Anniella pulchra nigra, occurs in beach dunes on the Monterey Peninsula and on the southern coast of Monterey Bay (south of the Salinas River) in Monterey County. Possibly introduced into some areas of the southern Sierra Nevada foothills through nursery and tree-planting operations.

Elevational Range

From sea level to around 5,900 ft.

Notes on Taxonomy

The 2017 SSAR Herpetological Circular No. 43 Standard Names List changed the common name of this species to Northern Legless Lizard

In 2008 Parham and Pappenfuss (2008)2 using mt and nuDNA found five previously unrecognized genetic lineages of Anniella pulchra that are evolving independently.

In September of 2013 by Papenfuss and Parham3 divided the existing one species of legless lizard into five species based on the five lineages from their 2008 study2, naming four new species and giving a new common name to the species now known as Anniella pulchra. The five species are:

Anniella alexanderae - Temblor Legless Lizard

Anniella campi - Southern Sierra Legless Lizard

Anniella grinnelli - Bakersfield Legless Lizard

Anniella pulchra - Northern California Legless lizard

Anniella stebbinsi - Southern California Legless Lizard

Range Map of 5 Species:

Subspecies

Anniella pulchra is traditionally split into two subspecies - Anniella pulchra pulchra - Silvery Legless Lizard, and Anniella pulchra nigra - Black Legless lizard, but these subspecies are no longer recognized by the SSAR (whose taxonomy is followed here) because of a 2000 study that showed that A. p. nigra and the Morro Bay populations have been found to have different evolutionary ancestors than A. p. pulchra, but not enough to warrant recognition as a distinct taxon. The 2008 study by Parham and Pappenfuss does not provide any information regarding these subspecies, but it does separate A. p. nigra into its own group, and the authors, in personal communications with an environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Game (related to me October 2010) have said that there is information that supports the recognition of A. p. nigra as a separate subspecies or even as a unique species, and their belief is that Pearse and Pogson did not mean to completely sink the subspecies, they meant to show that it had diverged significantly from the Morro Bay population, which should not be considered A. p. nigra.

From the SSAR Official Names List 6th Edition, 2008:

"Pearse and Pogson (2000, Evolution 54: 1041–1046) presented evidence that the melanistic form previously designated Anniella pulchra nigra is polyphyletic, its Monterey Bay and Morro Bay populations having been derived independently from the silvery form previously designated A. p. pulchra. Although Pearse and Pogson did not propose any taxonomic changes, their results indicate that the subspecies A. p. pulchra and A. p. nigra do not correspond with separated or partially separated lineages, and therefore we do not recognize subspecies within A. pulchra. The existence and extent of genetic continuity between populations of melanistic and silvery legless lizards, as well as between northern and southern mtDNA haplotype clades, deserves further study."

The State of California continues to recognize two subspecies of Anniella pulchra. A. p. nigra is a protected species.
Much of this lizard's habitat has been lost due to agriculture, housing development, sandmining, and other human land development, recreation, especially off-road vehicles in coastal dune areas, and by the introduction of exotic plants such as ice plant. 1

Protected from take with a sport fishing license in 2013.

"The former A. pulchra, a species of special concern (Jennings and Hayes, 1994), is now divided into five species. This means A. pulchra has a smaller distribution than previously recognized, thereby enhancing concern about its conservation status. The remaining four species have even smaller ranges, some of which are degraded or threatened by human activities. Whereas much of the range of A. stebbinsi is already compromised by urban development, the conservation implications for the other three new species are even more striking because of their very limited distributions. Anniella grinnelli is known from a few sites in the southern San Joaquin Valley, an area that has been greatly modified by urban and agricultural development …. Anniella grinnelli persists in small patches within the Bakersfield city limits, but some of the populations we collected were extirpated by development during the course of this study. The type locality at the Sand Ridge Preserve is a secure site that will help ensure the species survival. Anniella alexanderae is known from two sites at the base of the Temblor Mountains, and should be considered rare pending further study. Finally, Anniella campi is known from just three sites. This species may be restricted to the vicinity of potentially fragile springs in canyons that open into the Mojave Desert and so warrants careful monitoring. Additional research into the distribution, contact zones, and diversity of Anniella is clearly needed."

3 Four New Species of California Legless Lizards (Anniella)
Author(s): Theodore J. Papenfuss and James F. Parham
Source: Breviora, Number 536:1-17. 2013.
Published By: Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University
URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.3099/MCZ10.1

Conservation Status

The following status listings are copied from the April 2018 Special Animals List and the 2017 Endangered and Threatened Animals List, both of which are published by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

If no status is listed here, the animal is not included on either CDFW list. This most likely indicates that there are no serious conservation concerns for the animal. To find out more about an animal's status, you can go to the NatureServe and IUCN websites to check their rankings.

1) Legless lizards (Anniella sp.) in California were traditionally considered 1 species, but are now considered 5 species (Pappenfuss & Parham 2013). The prior (Jennings & Hayes 1994) and current (Thompson et al. 2016) Species of Special Concern (SSC) project evaluated the traditional single species taxon and determined all legless lizards in California to be an SSC. Therefore, the SSC status is carried over to the new taxon concepts until further SSC evaluation.

Organization

Status Listing

NatureServe Global Ranking

G3

Vulnerable—At moderate risk of extinction due to a restricted range, relatively few populations (often 80 or fewer), recent and widespread declines, or other factors.

NatureServe State Ranking

S3

Vulnerable in the state due to a restricted range, relatively few populations (often 80 or fewer), recent and widespread declines, or other factors making it vulnerable to extirpation from the state.

U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA)

None

California Endangered Species Act (CESA)

None

California Department of Fish and Wildlife

SSC

Species of Special Concern

Bureau of Land Management

None

USDA Forest Service

S

Sensitive

IUCN

Not listed

Anniella pulchra nigra - Black Legless Lizard

Organization

Status Listing

NatureServe Global Ranking

G3G4T2T3Q

The species is Vulnerable - Secure.
This subspecies is Imperiled - Vulnerable.
There are taxonomic questions associated with it.

NatureServe State Ranking

S2

Imperiled in the state because of rarity due to very restricted range, very few populations (often 20 or fewer), steep declines, or other factors making it very vulnerable to extirpation from the state.